The Golden Condor & the Space Shuttle -Mysterious Cities of Gold fic
by mathewbailey081
Summary: After Tao & Esteban discover a hidden capability of the Golden Condor that enables them to travel through time,they travel to the late 20th century & witness the ill fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger.


When Tao & Esteban discover a hidden capability of the Golden Condor,they travel forward in time to the late 20th Century & experience what turns out to be a world witnessed tragedy.

The year is 1536. Esteban,Tao & Zia along with Mendoza are plotting to travel aboard the Condor to other places of the Americas known to them as the New World. Once aboard, they head to a previously unheard of part of the New World which would be known as Florida.

Tuesday,January 28,1986,Kennedy Space Center,Cape Canaveral,Florida

A week after Tao & Esteban accidentally discovered a hidden capability that enabled the Golden Condor to travel through time,

they were conversing with each other about the bird's other capabilities. During the week they had seen & experienced various things about a female teacher who became an astronaut to teach from space & a ship called the Space Shuttle.

Tao had figured how to get the Condor to receive the voice transmissions between ground personnel & the shuttle.

Tao began take off & ascent of the Condor & began increasing speed.

"You're certain the condor can do about what we talked about?" Esteban asked. "Certainly" Tao answered.

Zia thought they were crazy until she & Mendoza along with Sancho & Pedro discovered the truth about what Tao & Esteban mentioned. They had just passed over the shoreline & Zia panicked some without uttering anything as she felt an abrupt increase in the Condor's speed. Some gasps came from Sancho & Pedro as they noticed the increase but without saying a word,Mendoza silenced them. They heard of plans of flying the condor at unheard of speeds to match those of the shuttle & to meet it in orbit. From the Condor's console came the sounds of Mission Control: "And liftoff,liftoff of the twenty fifth space shuttle mission & it has cleared the tower." A garbled message followed & then "roll program"

Suddenly,the condor began to angle gradually upwards & Zia felt herself being plastered into her seat as the condor's speed began to increase more & more. They heard next of the shuttle's name that bgan with a C from Mission Control as both it & them headed eastward. It was 11:38 am as they heard of the shuttle's engine status. Several seconds later, it became 11:39 am.

Once again,came the shuttle's name as Mission Control voiced a command to the shuttle's crew, "Go at throttle up." which came over the condor's console followed by "Roger,go at throttle up." Unbeknownst to everyone aboard the Condor,those words would be the final words heard from the shuttle's crew. There came a slight jolt as the condor flying at a speed of more than that of sound flew through a high altitude,high velocity wind pocket & then Esteban & Tao saw something happen along with Mendoza & evryone else. Looking at the shuttles' exhaust contrail, they saw it suddenly change into an elongated trail of flame which then began to balloon outward.

The solid rocket boosters emerged & then they saw them leave two huge exhaust contrails as they emerged going off in two different directions,one booster appeared as though as if it were heading towards the Condor. Tao immediately began to angle the condor from a 45 degree angle of travel to a level 90 degrees horizontal. By the time the Condor was level,

they saw the boosters fly on a straight upward course at a 45 degree angle.

From Mission Control,they began to hear the following: "One minute,fifteen seconds,velocity twenty nine hundred feet per second,altitude nine nautical miles,downrange distance seven nautical miles."

Esteban gasped as he & others spotted long,smaller trails of smoke emerging from the massive cloud of fire,vapor & smoke.

Then Esteban covered his mouth as he heard from Mission Control the following messages- "Flight controllers are looking very carefully at the situation." "Obviously a major malfunction." "We have no downlink." The condor was turned around for another look at the massive cloud as suddenly the two solid rocket boosters stopped flying upward,their contrails ending in thin air. Then a message came which made everyone aboard react in silent horror "We have a report that the vehicle has exploded,We're looking at what can be done at this point." Esteban begin to ask Tao something but Tao did not respond as he was concentrating on getting them back to Cape Canaveral. Esteban then asked Mendoza,but Mendoza responded with sadness in his voice, "I'm sorry,Esteban,they're dead."

As they headed west,Esteban could see the wind-twisted debris smoke trails as as he looked straight down at the ocean that the smoke trails headed downwards toward,looking straight downwards along their length.


End file.
